Supermassive Games rounds off the first season of The Dark Pictures Anthology with The Devil in Me, a sinister tale set in a hotel based on the crimes of America’s first serial killer.

Like an interactive TV show, season one of The Dark Pictures Anthology has had us exploring a creepy ghost ship, revisiting the witch trials, and running from vampires in a subterranean vault. Each bite-sized game has players guiding characters and interacting with an ensemble cast trying to get them all out alive. Decisions not only affect each character’s fate but also how they react to one another. The result is an edge-of-seat experience that is different with every playthrough.

I’ve always enjoyed the idea of a game presented as a movie or TV show. I loved Alan Wake with each episode starting with a “previously on Alan Wake” sequence. After an interactive TV-style tease, each episode of The Dark Pictures Anthology starts with a credit sequence leading to an introduction by the slightly sinister Curator. Like Hitchcock at the beginning of each episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the Curator sets the scene but also interjects during the game, offering players hints and an ominous reminder that the lives of the cast of characters are very much in their hands. Look closely and you may even spot the enigmatic host observing in the background during pivotal moments.

The Devil in Me starts with two ill-fated newlyweds checking into the World’s Fair Hotel, Chicago in 1893. This sets the scene offering players a very graphic introduction to H. H. Holmes, America’s first and perhaps most prolific serial killer.

Sensationalised reports had Holmes constructing a hotel for visitors of the Chicago World’s Fair. This “murder castle” was allegedly full of secret rooms with corridors laid out like mazes, doors opening to brick walls, and staircases going nowhere. Holmes would lure his victims, guests at the hotel, to their doom, or so the stories say. The truth is likely much more mundane, with Holmes’ victims in fact being known to him. The hotel was gutted by fire after Holmes’ arrest in 1895 and torn down in 1938. Holmes was executed by hanging on May 7^th, 1896.

This instalment of The Dark Pictures Anthology delves into the myth of H. H. Holmes having a TV crew receiving a mysterious invite to a preview of a hotel themed after the murderer’s infamous Chicago murder castle. What could possibly go wrong?

The game is a bit slow to start as it introduces the characters to the player. The relationships between each character are an important part of the game that the player needs to understand to make the life-or-death decisions required later on.

For this outing, I didn’t find the cast to be particularly likeable. This made it difficult to relate to them in a meaningful way that made their individual demises particularly impactful. The director, Charlie is mildly obnoxious with a sprinkling of arrogance. Kate, the presenter, seems cold and self-focused. Cameraman Mark is a bit of a drip. Jamie, the lighting engineer, seemed to be the only one in the group with her head screwed on properly.

The innocent and asthmatic intern, Erin, for me seemed destined for an early grave.

After handing their mobile phones to the chauffeur of their limo the team is driven to the misty shore of Lake Michigan. Here a very nervous man introduces himself as Granthem Du’Met, the proprietor of the themed hotel. Du’Met pilots a ferry to continue the journey to the island on which the hotel is sited. Using a ruse, Kate and Jamie, split up from the others to investigate the ground on the way to the main hotel building.

After unpacking, the team meets for dinner only to discover that their apparent host has left the island, seemingly in a hurry. For here things take a nasty turn within the mazelike confines of the hotel.

The game environments do a very good job of creating a dilapidated estate. The visuals have an almost photoreal look to them.

Players switch between characters as they start to investigate the hotel. Moving walls and animatronic contraptions unnerve both the hapless TV crew as well as the player as the deadly situation begins to reveal itself.

The characters are very well acted with a cast of real-life thespians bringing their A-game to the production. The animations are sometimes a little off in their movement but are otherwise quite expressive and realistic.

There are clues foreshadowing future events and building a picture of the backstory littered around the very detailed locations. This is a game that encourages players to check every nook and cranny. The game does, however, seem to lead players on a carefully constructed and somewhat liner path, for example: forcing you to open the only locked door- your fate is almost predetermined at times.

As well as exploring, this instalment seems to incorporate more platform-style gameplay elements with characters climbing, jumping, shimmying, and dragging crates like in an Uncharted game. There are also puzzles, switches, and hidden rooms that reminded me of the Resident Evil games.

Instead of just relying on a spooky plot, The Devil in Me takes inspiration from the Saw films in placing the cast in all manner of gruesome situations. This is probably the most disturbing of all the games that Supermassive has made, and the one most likely to give you nightmares afterward.

Each character has a method of illuminating the darkness when the lights go out, from the flicking flame of Charlie’s cigarette lighter to the flash of Mark’s camera. Whilst the intent is to create atmosphere, the screen was often a little darker than I’d liked and the characters’ torches were too dim to really see much.

The game had me on the edge of my seat more than I remember with the anthology’s previous games. This was exacerbated by the proceedings being quite unforgiving at times. Whether a character lives or dies can depend on a single button press. All it takes is a fumble with the controller and that’s it, curtains. It doesn’t always seem fair, but I’m not sure that keeping the characters alive is actually the aim of the game, to be honest.

Some suspension of disbelief is required, with the characters occasionally acting in a completely unbelievable manner. There are areas blocked by impenetrable barriers of detritus that, if it was a matter of life and death, you would transverse with relative ease. One of the characters also walked past an arrangement of pokers, in the full knowledge that they are dealing with a murderer, without thinking to pick one up as a weapon.

Its slasher movie inspiration makes The Devil in Me not for the squeamish.

Jump scares aside this is a story featuring a murderer that likes to play with his victims before and after their demise. Some of the imagery and the methods used by the killer are nothing short of grotesque.

With multiple threads to the story depending on the player’s decisions, the game invites multiple playthroughs. I found I’d missed whole chunks of the story due to the premature demise of characters the first time around. Being able to play the game with friends in both the local “Movie Night” couch co-op mode and the online “Shared Story” mode is another reason to return to the game.

I enjoyed my time with the game. The chilling Saw-like murders and the embodiment of Friday the Thirteenth’s Jason in the murderous pursuer, for me, made it the strongest of the series, if not the most technically accomplished. Whilst it has some glaring narrative faults, as a tense horror The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me hits the ball out of the park. Here’s to season 2.

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Along with the official release date a new trailer for The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me has been revealed.

Building up the tension as the crew hasten through the dimly lit hotel corridors and make gruesome discoveries in their attempt to escape the traps set for them by their mysterious host.

In addition to an increased runtime with a 7+ hour playthrough, this next instalment of the franchise brings all new features to enhance immersion and reward player exploration even further.

You can now interact much more with the world around you and enjoy new exploration actions which enrich this experience. As players tread the detailed and creepy corridors of the murder hotel, they will be able to push and pull objects, as well as run, jump or climb to reach areas that would otherwise have been inaccessible.

Also added is an inventory system, with each character having a number of tools at their disposal to aid them in their story such as a directional microphone, camera and camera flash, tie pin and reporters pencil, items that will prove very useful over the course of your playthrough. Some objects can even be altered, broken or given to other characters, and some can save a life, or even take it!

And this story is not just about running and hiding. You’ll need to get your thinking caps on, as the game will bring puzzles too. You’ll need to find codes, hidden or disguised in the world, untangle antique fuse boxes and find your way out of mazes, and failure might prove to be very costly indeed!

Finally, the multiplayer modes will be back. Challenge the killer alone or seek safety in numbers with friends, online or by passing the controller in couch co-op mode.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me is available for pre-order now, and releases on the 18th of November 2022, for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Steam.

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The horror genre can be a difficult one to define. What terrifies one person may pass as pasé or even humorous to another.

Is it the tension of watching characters on screen making bad decisions or is it massive amounts of realistic gore? This is a balance that Supermassive Games, developers of Until Dawn and the first two entries in the Dark Pictures Anthology, has tried to make.

Their latest entry in the anthology is House of Ashes, a dark (literally) tale of a special forces team in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War. Tasked with information that may lead to the capture of Saddam Hussein, the team, each of which you will control, finds something else entirely in the ruins of a cursed temple.

The game plays out similarly to the rest of Supermassive’s titles, in a telltale-esque blend of action sequences, important narrative decisions and exploring detailed environments for clues as to what’s going on.

I have to admit, when I started the game and it opened to a group of US soldiers and CIA agents were walking around an abandoned Ba’ath palace, I was immediately skeptical this would be another oo-rah piece of US military triumphalism.

And while it does keep some of those undertones throughout the game, fortunately it’s exploration of its main characters goes much deeper than “soldier good.” Instead, in place of a spooky, jump-scare filled gorefest, I was pleasantly surprised to play through a complex, narrative first game where gross creatures are second to character development and, gameplay, and lore.

In House of Ashes you will control each member of a small squad of elite soldiers after a mission goes awry and they are trapped underground, with an unknown creature attacking them. As the story progresses, you learn more about this creature, and those who came before to investigate them.

I won’t spoil anything, but what seemed like a straightforward plot became much more interesting at a certain point through my playthrough. It was a refreshing change that kept me engaged with the narrative just when I thought I knew where it was going.

In terms of gameplay, well, there isn’t much. Plenty of QTEs abound, along with some light combat mechanics. But this is definitely a sit back experience. I was pleased to see the option to hold a button instead of mashing it to complete QTEs, a core accessibility option, and one that helped me personally throughout my time with the game.

It is impressive the range of accessibility options that are starting to appear, and every option lets another player take part in the game.

Whether QTEs are even needed in 2021 is up for debate, but House of Ashes makes them more meaningful due to its branching story paths.

While obviously I can’t know what happens down each path, there were times in the story where my choice seemed to have a real effect on what happened (no spoilers). If only in illusion, I was impressed with the complexity of the narrative and how it reacted to what I did, even if the overall story arc seemed like a foregone conclusion.

Narrative-first games have undergone a renaissance following the demise (and subsequent rebirth) of Telltale Games. House of Ashes is a prime example of moving the genre forward, with an exceptional graphical presentation and a compelling narrative backed by some light but well-done gameplay interactivity.

House of Ashes is a solid choice for a weekend’s gaming, even though it may not be as scary as either previous entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology.

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PlayStation 4 owners familiar with Supermassive Games’ superb Until Dawn will be right at home with the British developer’s first story in The Dark Pictures Anthology, Man of Medan.

The Supermassive Games has had a stint providing novelty efforts for Sony and their PlayStation 4 of late, with varying success. Whilst I found the Until Dawn VR spin-off, The Inpatient pretty good, the social horror game, Hidden Agenda and iffy VR shooter, Bravo Team, were not so good.

With Man of Medan, the developer seems to be back on form.

Video-game visuals are fast approaching the quality of cutting-edge CGI movies. Thus, it makes perfect sense to utilise this technology to make an interactive experience that is more narrative than game. It worked for the PS4 exclusive, Until Dawn and it works for the The Man of Medan.

Supermassive are not the first to try this. I enjoyed Konami’s PS2 attempt at a making an interactive visual novel: Shadow of Memories, even if no one else did. Ready at Dawns massively underrated PS4 exclusive, The Order: 1886, utilised CGI-movie-quality visuals to tell a fantastic dark tale set in Victorian England. As with Shadow of Memories, the players wondered where the gameplay was. The concept of a “game” that is not, strictly-speaking, a game being a hard one for the marketing departments.

With Until Dawn, Supermassive, managed to crack this nut. By making the player’s choices translate to tangible and shifting character emotions and relationship attributes, this becomes the gameplay that may not have been obvious in past attempts.  Whilst the success of Until Dawn was only shared to PS4 owners, Man of Medan unleashes this new type of CGI narrative adventure game across PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Man of Medan is loosely based on the Fortean urban legend of the ghost ship, SS Ourang Medan, roughly translated from Malay to “Man of Medan”. Legend has it that this ghost ship was found with all the crew dead, seemingly with terror on their faces.

The game starts with a prologue during the Second World War, as two drunk soldiers are entertaining themselves in a Chinese marketplace before returning to their ship, you guessed it, the Ourang Medan. An altercation on deck sees one of them knocked out and the other put in the brig. As he returns to consciousness the soldier finds himself alone in the infirmary, a dead man is in the cupboard. Spooked, he finds his friend locked in the brig and frees him. Together they search the ship, discovering something has gone very wrong.

I’ll leave it at that.

With the prologue out of the way, the scene is set by a very TV show-inspired intro as The Curator, a mildly sinister overseer of the anthology series, walks the impressive halls of a building to his library-cum-study. Breaking the fourth wall The Curator, in a well enunciated British accent explains the nature if the tale that will unfold and the players role in influencing the circumstances that will befall our hapless cast.

The story, proper, is set in the present day. Four young Americas have chartered a boat in the South Pacific to take them on a diving expedition. Players are introduced to the protagonists and their unique personality traits. We have the introverted Brad Smith, his gallant brother Alex, Alex’s impulsive girlfriend, Julia, and her lovable asshole of a brother, Conrad. Their captain is the enigmatic Fliss.

An interesting underwater discovery and an altercation with the locals sets the five of them on a course that could mean their doom. It’s the players actions, however, that will determine their fate.

Of course, the modern-day story interacts with the prologue sequence, giving players an interesting haunted house at sea experience that is not quite as it at first appears.  As the story unfolds, the player is occasionally returned to The Curator’s study where he comments on the players performance and offers cryptic advice that may or may not actually be helpful.

The story is of reasonable length, for the price of admission, and well written. I did figure out the plot twist way before I felt the developers thought I would. The goings on are pretty obvious in the end, completely removing the horror element and making and leaving any tension up to cheap jump-scares.

The whole production is a polished, first-class affair. The acting, the motion capture and the superb visuals set the game up as an interactive CGI movie. Apart from the odd, weird waling animation, more a problem with having characters respond to players control that a fault of the game, the visuals are flawless.

The gameplay involves searching for clues, which usually result in option, quick-time-style actions. And conversational decisions. The rhythm mini-game with a heartbeat mechanic for keeping cool under stress it particularly well thought out and quite nerve-racking.

The game is not meant to be that twitchy, but it does force you to think quickly. This is when you make a bad call and maybe cost the life of one of the characters. But the game is never unfair. All the players choices add up to create a unique story that invites a replay to try different things.

As well as a solo mode, the Man of Medan can be played as a multiplayer game. Shared Story allows player to follow the story, online, with a friend. The Movie Night mode, turns the game into a fun party game, with 2-5 players passing the pad as their character(s) take centre-stage.

The game comes with a range of unlockable extras. Certain “making of” videos unlock as the player progresses though the game, whilst others require the discovery of all the game’s secrets.  Once the game has been played though once, the Curators Cut becomes available, telling an alternative view of the events.

Overall, Man of Medan is a good start to Supermassive’s The Dark Pictures Anthology. The macabre tale may not hold on to it’s secrets as long as I’d have liked, but it did keep me on my toes. It’s more of an interactive story that a “proper” game, but in saying that, I think the gameplay-to-story balance worked well. Personally, I’m looking forward to the next one. In the meantime, I’ll been giving Until Dawn another playthrough.

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